A series of patients with disturbed oral sensation (atypical facial pain, glossalgia, subjective xerostomia and dysgeusia), who have been thoroughly investigated for altered psychologic and physiologic factors underlying their oral symptoms, are being compared on the basis of taste sensitivity, salivary gland function (flow rates and minor salivary gland biopsy), and histology of circumvallate papillae. Comparisons are being made between patients with different types of distrubed oral sensation and between patients with acceptable etiologic explanations for their symptoms and those whose symptoms remain unexplained. Studies of the rate of electrical discharge from the oro-facial musculature of these patients as well as their response to biofeedback tension control training and other therapeutic modalities are being developed. Alteration in taste preference in laboratory rats is also being studied in experimentally-induced models of Vitamin A deficiency, oral moniliasis and xerostomia. The relationship between the taste of food and activity of the masticatory and facial musculature is being studied by both video-tape and electromyographic procedures.